How advertising invents standards

…and then gives us special permission to break them so we feel like their product is the most liberating thing ever.

I was watching TV the other night when I happened across an ad for Shick Quattro, a razor for women (you can tell it apart from Shick’s razors for men because it’s pink, obviously). It’s a fairly unremarkable ad until you get to the tagline at the end:

“Such long-lasting smooth skin, you could skip a day or two.”

I can? Gee, thanks Shick Quattro!

I’ll admit it, it’s shorts season - I shave my legs if they’re going to be out in public. But I have never ever shaved more frequently than every three days, not for vacations or second dates or any of those things we’re not supposed to do without flawlessly smooth legs.

Now, everyone’s hair grows at different speeds, and if there are women out there shaving every day then who am I to find fault with that? But the assumption that all of us are just doing this every morning as part of our regular shower routine blows my mind.